Second Sunday of Epiphany (2021)

 

17 January 2021 Second Sunday of Epiphany

Lectionary readings Revelation 5:1-10 and John 1:43-51

Our church building is closed at present, in this the third national lockdown. While the building is closed, I shall be livestreaming a weekly Service of the Word at 10.30 a.m. on Sunday mornings, via the church Facebook page. You do not need a Facebook account in order to watch.

The Order of Service can be downloaded and printed from here.

This morning’s recorded service can be found here.

 

Two readings this morning, both ascribed to John, who was one of Jesus’ first disciples. As a young man, he witnessed his teacher be executed by the Romans, probably not the first crucifixion he had witnessed, nor the last, but this one, uniquely, resulted in claims that God raised Jesus from the dead. Why? To vindicate him as the one appointed by God to judge his chosen people, Israel, for their collective sins; and then judge the surrounding nations who had (repeatedly) been used by God to judge his people but had (repeatedly) overstepped the mark.

In the years since, most if not all of John’s closest friends had been executed for preaching this message. Nonetheless, the number of believers had grown and spread like wildfire across the Greco-Roman world; including Gentiles—non-Jews—who chose to come under the authority, the rule, of this Jesus. However, the majority of the Jewish people—those who shared Jesus’ cultural identity—rejected their proclamation. Within a generation the Jews had rebelled against Roman rule, and had eventually been crushed, the Temple destroyed. The Christian sect were increasingly pushed out of the synagogues—out of Jewish community life—and sporadically persecuted by Roman officials, including, occasionally the decrees of the emperors.

Against this backdrop, John, by now an old man and bishop or overseer of the Church, finds himself exiled from Ephesus to the Aegean island of Patmos. And there, he has visions, writing down a symbol-rich encouragement to the churches of the Roman province of Asia Minor, who were experiencing the same hardships. In the passage we heard read today, John draws on the imagery of the Day of Atonement. This was the culmination of an annual time of repenting from sin, and where possible making amends, imploring God’s forgiveness and that your name might be recorded in the Book of Life, not the Book of Death: God’s annual judgement on each soul.

The many rituals of the Day of Atonement included two goats, or sheep. One was offered as the (regular) sacrifice for any unintentional sins of any of the people that had come to light, its sprinkled blood making the people of God and the place where they met with God ritually clean. The High Priest then laid hands on the head of the other, living, goat, confessing all of the legal guilt and moral blame (iniquities) and all of the rebellious acts (transgressions) of the people as a whole, symbolically conferring their sin onto this ‘scapegoat’ which was then taken out into the wilderness, carrying away their sins with it.

This was, and remains to this day, the holiest of moments for anyone of Jewish heritage, and one that had been wrestled with since the destruction of the Temple. And in John’s vision, Jesus, the Lamb, is both goats. He is the sacrifice whose blood covers the sins of priest and people, and purifies the place of encounter—in exile on Patmos, or caught up to the heavens. And he is the living scapegoat, on whom the sins of the people are laid, and who carries them away, never to be seen again.

In this vision, Jesus is affirmed as the one who has fulfilled these roles, once and for all, bringing those who believe into a new reality: Life, not Death. Even in exile, in eighteen months of isolation from the community, enjoying Life at God’s decree. Experiencing personal, relational well-being.

Our Gospel reading was written by John, some time earlier, recounting his experience of following Jesus. In the passage we heard read, we see Jesus calling his first disciples, friends drawing other friends in. Just a few verses earlier, Jesus has been identified by John the Baptist as the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, though, for now, he is carrying with him only the sins of his hometown, Nazareth, from where, Nathanael is certain, nothing good comes. And we get to listen-in on a strange conversation between Jesus and Nathanael about his being under a fig tree. In the Hebrew bible, the fig tree symbolises living in peace. The visionary Micah foresees a time when the nations will seek wisdom from God’s people, who will rule over them, removing the means of violence and idolatry; declaring, ‘but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.’ The visionary Zechariah foresees a time when God will send his servant, through whom he will remove the guilt of the nation on one day, and that on that day, ‘you shall invite each other to come under your vine and fig tree.’

 

But what does any of this have to do with us, today? In one sense, not much. The (his)story-arc John imagines will be fulfilled when successive Roman emperors bow before the claims made concerning Jesus as King of kings, and in the influence of the Church over European civilisation for a thousand years. But all of that is behind us now. The call of the Church today is to live in faithful improvisation, shaped by the same story.

In polarised societies that shape us to see ourselves and our tribe as blameless—to shrug off our complicity in structural evils as well as what we consider private wrongdoing; and, when found out, to demand others demonstrate unity with us without repentance on our part—in such societies we dare to confess our sin.

We dare to admit that we are not the authors of our own lives, let alone of the Good Life others might be permitted to participate in; but that our best effort brings death, albeit unintentionally. This is true whether it is the ways in which we rail against those who vote differently to us, or the ways we justify to ourselves why we are entitled to break the rules of social responsibility towards our neighbours in a pandemic.

We dare, instead, to believe that our participation in Life is brought about for us by the life of Jesus, the Lamb of God. And so, united with him, we are free to participate in relationships where unintended wrongs are neither ignored nor taken offence at, but lovingly brought to light, repented of, and forgiven.

We dare allow ourselves to be embraced by Life, by sheer gift we neither earned nor are somehow entitled to, welcoming even the difficult days of isolation as the place where we might see a glimpse of God’s glory, revealed in Jesus—and that might be enough, for us to live in peace.

In a divided world, we dare to sit, to meditate on all that God has done, for his ancient people and for all of the peoples, and we dare to extend hospitality, to find ways—even when bodily proximity is not the loving thing to do—to reach out to another person.

In a world where the environment is groaning, we dare to plant trees, metaphorical and literal, in whose shade our children and grandchildren will sit with the children and grandchildren of our enemies.

What have these old stories penned by an old man two millennia ago have to do with us today? Friend, the ink is not yet dry. The Lamb alone can open the scroll of the book of Life; and, if you ask him to, he can yet add your name.